Claude's Hidden Mind: Discovering the Emergent Global Workspace in Language Models

A global workspace in language models

We discovered that Claude has spontaneously developed a specialized internal region called the J-space, which functions like a conscious global workspace. This silent area allows the model to hold concepts in mind, reason through complex steps, and report its thoughts without generating text. Unlike automatic processing, this emergent structure enables flexible, deliberate reasoning and reveals hidden internal states that were previously invisible to us.

"Rather than being a chaotic jumble of numbers, Claude's internals have organized themselves in a way that is reminiscent of our own minds."